Whenever I hear the word post-racial, I can’t help but roll my eyes. Oftentimes, because it is usually accompanied with the good ole “We have a Black president now”. I decided to read the entirety of the “The End of White America?” to see what the author was trying to get at and give context to the quotes explored in class. However, I was disappointed and not surprised to see how simple some of his arguments were. At times, parts of his piece read like a satire.

I want to precede my critique with my own thoughts on this ideal of a post-racial society. First and foremost, I think we are far from reaching a post-racial society. Currently,  there is so much in society situates whiteness as the norm that even if Whites become the minority it won’t necessarily change things. The election of a Black President will not all of the sudden change the tide. This country was basically founded on the principle that Blacks were inferior. It wasn’t until about 50 years ago that segregation was officially ended. In today’s society a Black person can get fired for wearing natural hair. American history focuses mainly on White America. Seeing a Black person in a film is luck,if they are able to speak you’ve hit the jackpot. You’ll be lucky to read a book from a person of color in an English class. These are only  examples that immediately come to mind, which is sad and alarming. In so much of our society whiteness is seen as the default that I personally feel is not fully acknowledged in the article.

A lot of the article has broad generalizations and surface level analysis. For example, the author states that there are people of color in office but there is no mention of how many people of color there are in comparison to Whites. If Whites are minority, will it matter when they control most things? He mentions how some Whites feel there is a lack of White culture, but this also affects Black Americans. He suggests that future generations that “didn’t have to follow the path of race” will somehow bring us closer to a post racial society. However, he doesn’t consider that we are raised in this society that values whiteness.

I do wonder if his article would change due to the recent events involving Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, etc. I think those events would complicate matters, but  I also think he could benefit from a more in depth analysis of the things discussed.

Hua Hsu’s article “The End of White America” puts forth the interesting prospect of a new America, whose culture is created not by the white American but by the new mainstream of a “post-white” country. Hsu’s tone through the article is hopeful; he mentions significant progress of the inclusion of more diverse actors and actresses on television, the increase in the number of non-white elected officials, and the possibility that a post-racial world means that race is “no longer essential to how we define ourselves.” Although Hsu cites a few examples as evidence that identifying as white is “no longer a precondition for entry into the highest levels of public office” nor for other milestones of cultural ascension,  I find his conclusions premature. Hsu mentions the rise of hip-hop as an example of how African American culture is helping to redefine mainstream culture in America. While hip-hop has developed a global audience and emerged as a multi-billion dollar industry, I would argue that hip hop artists are still forced to the margins of white American culture and white artists still culturally appropriate and capitalize on elements of black culture. Perhaps a prime example of this is Miley Cyrus’ appropriation of twerking at the VMAs in 2013. The form of dance exploded onto the American culture scene, but had existed in global black culture for years. The popularization and manipulation of the dance, coupled with society’s hyper-sexualization of black bodies, just solidifies the assertion that white American still handles and shapes culture creation.

Additionally, the article does little to address intersectionality, considering race as isolated from other identifiers of personal identity, when, in fact, all facets of a person’s identity inform their experience. Gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status are just a few of these identifiers that come together each with their separate systems of hierarchy and power. Rather than speaking of people abandoning their whiteness, we should instead encourage a greater understanding of how race has impacted the experience of certain groups in society. A post-racial society we are not, and instead of fooling people into thinking of today’s society as one, we should instead work to address the discrimination and inequality that still so clearly exists.

One heavily stressed issue that Aldon D. Morris writes about in this book is the conflict between Du Bois and Washington. The social factors, that contributed to the accepted narrative that credited Robert E. Park and Booker T. Washington rather than Du Bois, are reflective of a persisting intragroup issue in which members of the black community who align more closely with the accepted ideas of white society as a whole are given a greater platform than those who choose a path independent of the societal stream.

The disparity between the support and funding received by Du Bois and the Atlanta school and Park and the Chicago school was a result of not only the marginalization of black academia, but also the continuing friction between Washington and Du Bois. The establishment of Washington as, effectively, the gate keeper of black funds and political clout can be attributed solely to his docile acceptance of the white ideal imposed on the community.

Today, this issue still endures within the black community. Often, black leaders are pitted against each other, whether it be based on differences in ideals, methods, or actions. And regularly, this conflict descends into a fight in which white media takes the side of whomever has ideas more in line with white standards. For example, prior to the recent rape allegations, Bill Cosby was often cited by members of the white community for his ideas on the problems of the black community. In his famous “Pound Cake” speech, Cosby criticizes parts of the community, while also blaming African Americans for their own plight. Over and again, Cosby attributed the issues of the black community to larger issues with black culture as a whole. And, until recently, many white leaders, arguing for the idea that black culture was the real, pervasive problem, mentioned Cosby’s argument, somehow “legitimizing” him as an expert on the black community.

As with Washington, Cosby’s comments on the black community served as a serious detriment to those who were actually trying to fix the problems he discussed. When Washington expressed the idea that blacks should strive for economic equality through industrial jobs, rather than total social, economic, and political equality, he also hindered the work of other black leaders who were trying to achieve the latter goal. A century later, when Cosby expressed these ideas that sat well with white media, he effectively became another obstacle for black leaders who were trying to fix the issues that plagued the black community at the source. In his shallow and imprudent comments, he allowed others to also blame black community issues on black culture, rather than on the years of systematic and structural disadvantage that had created these issues.

It would be a fallacy to say that there ever has been a single black experience that has wholly defined “blackness.” However, I think it’s safe to say that as America becomes more and more progressive, it becomes increasingly hard to define what “blackness” really is. A person born in a rich family attending private school his or her life and a person born in the Chicago projects can both be black, but their life experiences are so diverse that it begs the question of whether “blackness” is even a thing.

I would argue, (and I would love to hear contrary opinions, this is just a thought), that as long as their is lingering racial inequality and prejudice present in American society, blackness will be a real construct that can unite people of totally different backgrounds. It’s hard to mention the origin of blackness in America without mentioning the struggle to overcome racism, and I think this struggle to overcome and thrive is something that has really united the black community and defined what it means to be black. The struggle has created social cohesion, in a sense. I’m not saying, though, that blackness is defined by struggle. Lots of culture that comes from black America does have a foundation in the struggle to overcome prejudice (lots of music and social movements, for example), but plenty of black American culture does not have a foundation in struggle. My point, then, is that the reason blackness exists in the first place, the reason that it acts as a social bond is because of a shared experience of black people, regardless of background, in facing prejudice. Despite the huge diversity in the black community in culture and socio-economic level, I think this experience of overcoming prejudice is something that actually does unite all (or at least a very large majority) of black people, keeping the notion of blackness alive. I think it’d be hard to find a black American who hasn’t experienced prejudice at some point, whether it be a kid in the projects or a CEO.

The question, then, that I submit is what would happen to “blackness” if in the future there was no prejudice. We’ve talked in class about the “beigification” of America, and how lines between races are becoming so blurred and complex that perhaps in a few generations race won’t even be an identifying factor for people anymore. In a society where everyone is just a shade of beige, would “blackness” still be around? Would losing “blackness” be a bad thing? The idea of of a society where race isn’t a factor may sound nice because it would mean no more racial discrimination, but is something lost when a rich culture fades away? Is it better to preserve blackness as a culture, or let it wash away as everyone is assimilated into a big societal melting pot? Take for example, Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly. It’s an incredible album, backed in the issues of struggle in the black community. In a beige society, where race isn’t an identifier, we wouldn’t have pieces of art like TPAB that are tied to racial culture. However, the whole reason the album exists is because of struggle and strife (since most of the albums deal with these issues), and while it is a great album, perhaps getting rid of these issues is more important than preserving blackness. Or perhaps we can get rid of prejudice while still preserving blackness, but that begs the question of whether the tie of blackness will be as strong.

Sorry this was a bit rambly, but I think it’s an interesting topic! Also these convictions I have are just projections of what I’m thinking, they’re not set-in-stone opinions, so I would love to hear some different thoughts.

The Election of Barack Obama is just the most startling manifestation of a larger trend: the gradual erosion of “whiteness” as the touchstone of what it means to be American. If the end of white America is a cultural and demographic inevitability, what will the new mainstream look like—and how will white Americans fit into it? What will it mean to be white when whiteness is no longer the norm? And will a post-white America be less racially divided—or more so?

IF THEY’RE RIGHT—if white America is indeed “losing control,” and if the future will belong to people who can successfully navigate a post-racial, multicultural landscape—then it’s no surprise that many white Americans are eager to divest themselves of their whiteness entirely.

For some, this renunciation can take a radical form. In 1994, a young graffiti artist and activist named William “Upski” Wimsatt, the son of a university professor, published Bomb the Suburbs, the spiritual heir to Norman Mailer’s celebratory 1957 essay, “The White Negro.” Wimsatt was deeply committed to hip-hop’s transformative powers, going so far as to embrace the status of the lowly “wigger,” a pejorative term popularized in the early 1990s to describe white kids who steep themselves in black culture. Wimsatt viewed the wigger’s immersion in two cultures as an engine for change. “If channeled in the right way,” he wrote, “the wigger can go a long way toward repairing the sickness of race in America.”

The  preceding quotes are taken from The Atlantic article The End of White America (an interesting read in its entirety that I recommend). Professor Bobo mentioned the article last class  in reference to the salient questions: “What is race?” and “What are the competing views of the deep structure of race?”

The article poses the questions: “What will it mean to be white when whiteness is no longer the norm? And will a post-white America be less racially divided—or more so?”

Considering what the end of whiteness might mean is inextricably linked to the meaning of  non-whiteness broadly and blackness, specifically, especially for our course as scholars thinking about the sociology of the black community. As many of you queried in class: what are the contours of  “the black community” as a sociological object of study?  And to go a step further, what are the contours of  “blackness” as an identity?